Engineered with spirit, perfected by a champion and hand-made with precision, the original NSX is truly special

Rumour has it a day before its debut in 1989, Honda president Tadashi Kume fired up the NSX and revved the engine to 8,000 rpm.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Prices of first-generation Acura NSX sports cars have nowhere to go but up.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

The Acura NSX's benchmark was the Ferrari 348, but with one key difference: it was actually reliable.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

In Honda lingo, NSX stands for New Sports eXperimental.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman would use his NSX for all kinds of spirited drives, including one where he looked at horses with his daughter.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Aluminum (and possibly pop-up headlights) was the key to the original Acura NSX's success.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Even today, the 270-horsepower V6 in Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX is as smooth as oiled silk.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

In its heyday, the Acura NSX was arguably Japan's crowning automotive achievement.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

The teeth on the titanium key of Marc Millman's Acura NSX are smoothed down, a testament to how well he's driven his sports car.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Marc Millman's 1991 Acura NSX.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Flipping through the pages of the original Acura NSX brochure.

Brendan McAleer, Driving

Over the years, Marc Millman has owned a series of icons. When he was 18, he had a TriumphTR6. After that, he drove a Datsun 240Z. He once took delivery of a ’78 911 right at the gates of Porsche‘s factory in Stuttgart.

But more than two decades ago, he came across a car that just clicked – one that put an end to the sports cars rotating through his driveway. On a sunny Vancouver day, with the cherry blossoms already drifting down gently from the trees, a garage door opens on a quiet side-street in the heart of the city. Inside, there’s an Acura NSX.

Millman’s 1991 car is an ideal introduction to what makes this car so special. While obviously well cared-for, it’s no museum piece. The leather seat bolsters show signs of wear. The teeth of the titanium key are smoothed down by use. It’s clean and polished, with plenty of tread on the tires, but there are just under 180,000 kilometres on the odometer.

The teeth on the titanium key of Mark Millman’s Acura NSX are smoothed down, a testament to how well he’s driven his sports car.Brendan McAleer /
Driving

That’s the entire point of the NSX. It is a car built to be driven, not to be pampered and tucked away and seldom used. It’s beautiful without being brittle, effervescent without being ephemeral, exotic without being neurotic. At the time this car was launched, owning an Italian sportscar was like owning a muscular stallion with rippling flanks and a touch of leprosy: gorgeous, but sometimes the legs fell off.

The NSX was built to give the same thrills, but without the tendency to wilt like mozzarella in the hot Tuscan sun. Like the steel used to make a katana, the NSX was hammered again and again until Honda‘s engineers had beaten out the impurities and created something that was both weaponry and art.

The Acura NSX’s benchmark was the Ferrari 348, but with one key difference: it was actually reliable.Brendan McAleer /
Driving

“If you had a deposit down,” Millman says, backing his NSX carefully out of the driveway, “They took you out to Westwood for a demonstration day. That got me hooked, for sure.”

Just behind our seats, the all-aluminum 3.0-litre V6 spins up joyfully. Here, it makes 270 horsepower, while later cars got a bump to 290 thanks to a slight increase in displacement. Both engines sound fantastic and are as smooth as oiled silk.

Even today, the 270-horsepower V6 in Mark Millman’s 1991 Acura NSX is as smooth as oiled silk.Brendan McAleer /
Driving

That’s part of the experience, but the main impression is formed by the simply panoramic view out front. The NSX’s nose drops away quickly, so while you sit low, driver and passenger aren’t hemmed in; on the contrary – it’s like sitting in your own private movie theatre as the road unfolds before you.

“You really need a twisty piece of road,” Millman says, “Like the run down through the Fraser Canyon. I’ve driven it down the coast to San Francisco and back; my daughter got involved in equestrian events, so we traveled together out to Calgary and Red Deer and around, looking at horses.”

Marc Millman would use his NSX for all kinds of spirited drives, including one where he looked at horses with his daughter.Brendan McAleer /
Driving

As a front-row seat to the best roads of the Western provinces and down the Pacific coastline, you could hardly do better. The cockpit of the NSX takes inspiration from that of the F-16 Falcon, and in the car’s blacked-out roofline, you can see the influence of the single-seater fighter-plane.

Honda commissioned Italian design house Pininfarina to create the first concept that would lead to the NSX. Unveiled at the 1984 Turin autoshow, the HP-X (for Honda Pininfarina eXperimental) was a minimalist triumph. However, both the lack of doors and feeble 2.0-litre V6 weren’t production-ready.

Initially, Honda benchmarked the Ferrari 308 for performance targets, and then the later 348. Even in retrospect, this seems like the height of hubris, but at the time Honda was at the top of its game. Even an ordinary Civic was a fizzy little car to drive – Soichiro Honda was still around, both in body and in spirit.

Aluminum would be the key to the NSX’s success, with the engineers focusing on an obsessive weight-savings plan. The undressed all-aluminum monocoque, a world-first for production cars, weighed just 200 kilograms. The forged double-wishbone suspension and body were also aluminum.

Even before it debuted, the car caused a disruption. While Ford was holding a press conference next door, Honda’s PR team quietly ran through a rehearsal of their unveiling, planned for the next day. Tadashi Kume, president of Honda and deeply involved in their F1 program, wandered over to the red NSX standing ready on the display stand. He climbed in. He fired it up.

Rumour has it a day before its debut in 1989, Honda president Tadashi Kume fired up the NSX and revved the engine to 8,000 rpm.Brendan McAleer /
Driving

Before anyone could stop him, he pinned the throttle and sent that jewel of a V6 hurtling towards its 8,000 rpm redline, forged pistons and titanium connecting rods blurring.

The next day, the waiting world found out what all the racket was about. Collectively, the press were stunned, flabbergasted, gobsmacked. However, they hadn’t got their hands on it yet, and that’s a good thing. What happened next would put a much-needed final edge on Honda’s samurai sword.

The car shown in Chicago was the NS-X for New Sports eXperimental – the hyphen was later dropped. It’s sheer luck the car wasn’t called something else because as with Datsun’s Fairlady/240Z, Honda had another name for the car, something to line up with the Legend, the Vigor, and the Integra. What the alternatives were, no one seems to remember. They might have called it the Raptor – who knows?

But while the car’s name settled into place, Honda’s engineers were still ironing out the details. At the Suzuka circuit in February, right around the same time the sheets were coming off the car in Chicago, F1 legend Ayrton Senna was ripping around the racecourse in an NSX. Much to Honda’s chagrin, he wasn’t impressed.

Marc Millman’s 1991 Acura NSX.Brendan McAleer /
Driving

“I’m not sure I can really give you appropriate advice on a mass-production car,” the Brazilian prodigy said. “But I feel it’s a little fragile.”

Honda scrambled to make changes, even founding one of the first Japanese R&D centres at the Nürburgring. With Senna’s assistance, the chassis was stiffened a further 50 per cent and the suspension honed for further balance.

Today, this road is no German racetrack, but the NSX is relatively composed in traffic and easy-to-drive. It’s been nothing like as expensive to stable as a horse, and yet provided the same faithful companionship.

Marc Millman’s 1991 Acura NSX.Brendan McAleer /
Driving

“Are you going to buy the new one?” a passing cyclist asks, as we stop for pictures at Spanish Banks.

“Oh, I’ve got a deposit down,” Millman answers.

However, while I’ve given him my press kit for the new NSX – reborn with twin-turbochargers and a hybrid drivetrain – that might be as close as it gets for Millman.

“I want to wait and hear what the verdict is when somebody actually drives one,” Millman says of the new NSX. Even if the new car is a dream to drive, it’s hard to imagine that it’ll be able to match the lasting impact of its predecessor.

Engineered with spirit, perfected by a champion, hand-made with precision, the original NSX is something very special indeed. It’s too bad Acura already made a car called the Legend, because that’s the only other name they could have called it.